Twitter fiction festival kicks off today

PARIS (AFP) – Twenty-nine storytelling projects from around the world are being showcased from Wednesday in the first-ever Twitter fiction festival, held over five days on the microblogging site.

The virtual event, taking place in five languages — Arabic, English, French, Italian and Spanish — will run from November 28 to December 2, according to the social network’s official blog (blog.twitter.com).

While everyone is free to take part under the #twitterfiction hashtag, the festival’s selection panel, made up of US publishing industry experts, picked 29 entries from around the world to highlight on a dedicated page, at mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction.

The Twitter media team’s head of research and development Andrew Fitzgerald stressed the festival was “not a competition.”

“There will be no winner, we just want to showcase creative storytelling,” he told AFP ahead of the event.

A young American women, Elliott Holt (@elliottholt), will open the ball on Wednesday at 2400 GMT, with a crime story that plays on the idea of a Twitter feed used as evidence.

Among the tales on offer — which come from a mix of published and novice writers — Lucy Coats (@lucycoats) from Northampton in Britain will re-tell 100 Greek myths in 100 Tweets.

London-based Faiq Muneef will be tweeting an Arabic language story called “The Crying Canary” from Sunday at 1300 GMT.

From Thursday to Sunday at 0900 GMT, @00serialTW will be unfurling a stream of tales inspired by the work of Italian writer Italo Calvino.